Marcel joined the SUSI&James team as Managing Director on 01.01.2021. Through his management and leadership skills coupled with extensive industry knowledge, a large network of contacts and many years of experience, Marcel was able to positively influence business development and drive the further development of internal processes.
"To me, SUSI&James means innovation, potential to grow and create a real game-changer, and freedom to act."
Marcel is a sports-minded man of principle and pleasure with a penchant for rock and metal. He is a proud Rhinelander and his social environment plays an important role for him in his private life. Marcel likes to spend his free time with sports (actively and as a spectator). He is characterized by his quick comprehension as well as his rational and curious character, which is essential for his position as managing director in his everyday professional life.
Acting rationally by weighing up opportunities and risks is very important in such a position "When managing a company, one must not forget that the company consists of employees and lives from them. A decision "based on gut instinct" can have fatal consequences, which can affect both the company as such and the employees!" Marcel's curiosity helps him understand what simplifies and could simplify our customers' everyday lives. This reflects the innovative strength and will of SUSI&James, because we want to make everyday life easier for our customers with the digital employee SUSI and our industry solutions.
Marcel completed his diploma in physics in the field of non-linear time series analysis. He worked for a long time as a student trainee in the IT department of his former employer. After graduating in 2009, he took on his first role as a manager, combined with some hurdles to jump over. "A person is not a machine. You have to pick him up, motivate him and communicate with him a lot. Leadership can be learned, experience helps with that, but you also have to want and like it yourself." Nevertheless, Marcel managed to overcome these hurdles, learned to deal with difficulties and grew from them.
In his further development up to director and authorized signatory, he held various other management positions and was able to gain successive experience in an international environment, for example through stays in China and the USA. In the process, he came into contact with various tasks with complete profit & loss responsibility in the automotive and IT sectors and became familiar with the working methods and structures of large companies. This long and valuable experience as well as various in-service coachings help Marcel to contribute to the development of SUSI&James.
Marcel became aware of SUSI&James through contacts. He made a conscious decision in favor of a young and innovative startup in order to support the acquisition of new customers in the automotive and service & trade sectors with the help of his large network. Furthermore, Marcel promoted the further development of internal processes at SUSI&James. "For example, in the first quarter a framework was established in the area of controlling, which is able to withstand the planned growth of SUSI&James"
"I want to help the company become the market leader for Digital Employees.”
Marcel's responsibilities include ensuring both internally and externally that appropriate conditions are met so that our company identifies and efficiently develops growth potential. He moderates and supports both our projects and processes by maintaining an overall view of current projects. In doing so, Marcel supervises our employees and customers in discussions to ensure a smooth process. Should obstacles arise in the execution of a project, Marcel acts as a liaison to the customer, communicating them and helping to find solutions.
It is important to have experience in target group-adapted communication and to be a solution-oriented person like Marcel. "Sometimes I talk to customers who are not interested in the technology, but in the solution. Sometimes customers who have a technical background themselves are interested in the technology and want to know everything so they want to buy the solution. In conversations, I have to adapt to that and provide targeted information that is important to the customer." His analytical thinking and a sober view of all factors support Marcel daily in his tasks of dealing with commercial issues and developing the organization.
Marcel mainly accompanies projects from the automotive and service & trade sectors. Here, he supports the project managers in the customer meetings mostly at the beginning and at the end, but then leaves the further procedure and planning to them. "Occasionally, I am also involved in the discussions in between for complex projects. But I also like to leave it up to the project managers to manage the project and trust them to do so.
Marcel decided to use the hashtag #accelerate because developing the company is part of his job: "It's my job to develop the company, and that includes accelerating any subject processes so that the company gains overall speed. Intrinsic speed is a necessary condition for a company to gain traction." Marcel's vision is to use SUSI as a synonym for Digital Workforce in a few years. "We want SUSI to become synonymous with Digital Employees, like Nutella is to nut nougat cream or Tempo is to handkerchief. Our solution should become the leading solution especially in the business environment, that would be a real game changer!"
We would like to thank Marcel for the interview and are happy to have him as our managing director!